Do you ever get that feeling when you’re with a group of people and you just NEED to say something, and you feel like you will never be content if you don’t get to say it?

Yeah, me neither.

When I signed up to volunteer for Palate Coffee Brewery, I was nervous about having to engage with customers. I previously waitressed at a brasserie, but that was in England and chatty customer service was not a cultural norm.

At Palate, the atmosphere thrives on camaraderie. The baristas ask how a customer’s family is doing. They show interest in the poetry that a customer is writing. They remember which drink someone orders. As a new recruit, I saw that as my standard.

If only I were more talkative.

It’s not that I don’t have things to say. In fact, if you ask about my thoughts on something, I’ll tell you. But I won’t volunteer my opinions. Until you inquire of them, they stay with me.

Because of that, I have a special place in my heart for the types of people who do ask about my thoughts. Or about how my day is going. Even if I’m at a restaurant or café, and the person is just being friendly. Them asking me a question indicates to me that I have a free space to speak. I don’t have to worry about my words falling on deaf ears. I have full confidence that the waitress, the barista, the 7-Eleven clerk, or whoever are listening.

So in the early days of volunteering for Palate, I followed my co-barista’s lead and sparked conversations with customers.

“What do you have planned for today?”

“What brings you to Sanford?”

“I love that book you’re reading! How’re you finding it?”

I was surprised by how simply asking those questions could transform a customer. A person would amble through the door looking as closed-up as a clam, and then stroll away, bright and bubbly as kombucha (which is delicious, by the way).

My confidence grew as I volunteered more often and built relationships with the regulars.

And I realized something: some people are motormouths to the core. Some people just need coffee. Others are like me: content to stay quiet, but deeply appreciative of the daily, drop-in people who ask how I’m doing.

So I strive to be that person in a customer’s day. When a customer has, perhaps, been talked at and shelled up in a cubicle for hours, they then get to retreat to Palate and tell someone how they are. They can get something off their chest.

I love helping in that way because I know how special it is when someone helps me in that way. It gives me strong incentive to speak.

Of course, necking a few shots of espresso before my shift doesn’t hurt.